Diman students get experience installing solar panels

Friday

May 2, 2014 at 12:15 AMMay 2, 2014 at 12:20 AM

The solar array is installed on a mock rooftop previously built by the school’s carpentry students. When powered up, it will generate 5.7 kilowatts of electricity, enough electricity to power a small home. It represents a small percentage of the school’s electrical power.

Michael Gagne Herald News Staff Reporter @HNMikeGagne

FALL RIVER — It was an unseasonably chilly morning, but that didn’t stop a group of electrical engineering students from completing their assignment: to install a row of solar panels and connect them to the grid that powers the building of Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School.

The solar array is installed on a mock rooftop previously built by the school’s carpentry students. When powered up, it will generate 5.7 kilowatts of electricity, enough electricity to power a small home. It represents a small percentage of the school’s electrical power.

The project is less about reducing Diman’s utility costs and more about giving electrical engineering students the chance to get out of the classroom and work on live projects, including those related to renewable energy.

It also counts toward the apprenticeship hours those students need in order to become licensed electricians, explained Gaston Levesque, an electrical engineering instructor at the school.

“It’s to keep up with technology,” Levesque said. “Our students later on might be working on it with electrical contractors. So they will have some knowledge on solar power.”

It will be an ongoing project.

“Last year was the first year. They installed the complete system,” Levesque said. “Every year, students will take down one row. ”

This week, 20 electrical engineering students removed and then installed a row of nine solar panels, out of more than 20 total panels. Students worked on the project for about four days.

The students, all juniors wearing protective glasses and gloves, worked on the roof and in a small room underneath it. With the panels installed, students on the roof applied wraps on the wires connected to the panels.

Inside the room, students Brendan Watts, David Theberge and Dylan Barreira fed wires from the solar panels into boxes that invert the direct current power from the panels to the alternating current needed to power electrical devices in the building.

“So far, we have been testing the panels as we go,” Theberge said. He pointed to one of the boxes where wires were fed. “This is the inverter for the second row.”

As he worked, Watts explained that it’s important to organize and feed the multicolored wires to their correct terminations. “We have to make sure to pay attention to where we put the positives and the negatives,” Watts said.

Students said they hoped their work hours put in at Diman would lead to other opportunities with companies that do either industrial work or residential work.